Information for parents of kids in Mandarin immersion education

Utah immersion program looks to university

Ah, to be in Utah, where they seem to have a sense of how this whole immersion thing is going to work out K – 16. There’s something so calming about having these issues worked on at the state level, so every freaking school district doesn’t have to work it out on their own, and make their own mistakes and missteps along the way. (can you sense my frustration as San Francisco goes through its growing-pains period….?)

As Utah’s first dual-immersion students are prepping for college, so is their language program

(Steve Griffin | The Salt Lake Tribune) Mayte Rodriquez smiles as Clay Newman reads here answer to a question as they attend Indgrid Campos’ AP Spanish class at Layton High School, in Layton, Utah Thursday, April 7, 2016. The first cohort of students who enrolled in Utah’s dual immersion programs are now reaching the age where they can take high school AP language courses for college credit.

Layton, Utah

Layton High School sophomore Mikelle Argyle doesn’t consider herself fluent in Spanish, but she feels confident about taking the AP Spanish test this week.

That’s because Argyle — a native English speaker — has spent a portion of every school day speaking Spanish since she was in first grade.

Argyle and her classmates, plus a similar group of sophomores at Viewmont High, were the first students enrolled in a pilot program, now in 138 schools statewide, where elementary students spend half their days learning math, science and other subjects in an immersion, or non-native, language.